Deweaponise or be defeated

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation says that, “When you discover that the horse you were riding is dead, the best strategy is to dismount.” In Pakistan we appoint an Apex committee.

If the government of Pakistan was even half serious on combating crime and militancy, it would have googled gunpolicy.org to discover that there are 43.9 million guns (both licit and illicit) held by civilians in Pakistan. These include deadly automatic machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns. No wonder our police is equally helpless and scared to confront the riverine dacoits, the tribal militants or the rich urban goons.

Pakistan’s only option is to launch a massive nation-wide deweaponisation operation. A simple 3 point agenda needs to be executed across Pakistan. Ban issuance of all weapon licenses. Demand surrender of all illegal weapons. Initiate buy-back scheme for all licensed weapons. Violators must be treated with unacceptably severe consequences.

Ideally these operations must be conducted by the police. However, having been heavily politicised, the police has lost its capacity to check even roadside mugging. Army is the only organisation left that can undertake this task. Thus, to repeat the experiment of Apex Committees (many of whose ministers are themselves heavily armed) shall be another non-value-adding exercise. It may be best to dismount the proverbial Dakota horse, and get down to serious business as demonstrated by other sane nations like UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Naeem Sadiq